What is Empowerment?

I was on the phone with a friend the other day. She was defeated. (What a way to start a piece on empowerment, but stick with me.) 

She was struggling with finances, her romantic relationship was in the gutter, and she was thinking of moving back in with her parents despite loving the city she was in. There were possibilities surrounding her, but she couldn’t see a way out. She was hopeless. How could things look up, how could things look better? 

I think for many of us in the western world, we lock ourselves in cages of our own makings. We work jobs we hate, stay in relationships we know aren’t working, do the same thing expecting a different result. We give our power and empowerment away. And maybe we have numbed ourselves so much to our own unhappiness, and numbed ourselves to the power we have, we look at the problems of the world as if they are unsolvable, unmovable and unattainable. Because what have we often accepted for ourselves? 

Empowerment was never meant to be a road we walk alone. My friend did not call me to tell her, “well, that sucks.” (which, I did say, but it didn’t end there). She called me because she needed me to give her the gift of empowerment. The word itself is giving someone the confidence or authority to take back the power in their own lives. And sometimes when we cannot see the way for ourselves, we have each other to shine a beacon. That’s the beauty of us all being human and hanging out on this rotating rock together. We have each other to reflect back to us the powerful beings that we are, but have forgotten we are. 

Empowerment is a willingness to give to others the affirmations, the resources, the words, the confidence in themselves to pursue what it is they want to. It is a gift we have the power to give to others and ourselves. 

How amazing it was to watch on the other side of the globe, a woman whose story I heard before I even met her: The story of Dorice. From meeting her to seeing her on a stage live streamed halfway across the world at Horizon’s Gala, empowered to speak her truth. A woman, who against all odds rose from the grips of poverty and moved from disempowerment to empowerment. 

It took one person meeting her and empowering her, and then it rippled into a greater community rallying behind this woman whose name is legend to all of those who know her. After her parents died, she felt hopeless. Her father’s promise that she would finish school seemed unattainable and unachievable. In the grips of poverty, with no resources, what hope did she have? 

But after meeting co-founder Jim Pesce, he heard her story, he listened. He told her, “your father’s words will come to pass.” And in that moment, the unspeakable and intangible power of empowerment rippled out. A spark ignited, a flash of hope came back. 

The beauty of empowerment is that it is contagious when harnessed. When we step into our power, we can offer to others the belief and resources and words, that they, too, can achieve what it is that they dream to. Empowerment goes beyond just the bare minimum. It takes us to the clouds, it takes us into a space, not of survival but of dreaming.

It’s why I have continued to work alongside Horizon. Yes, we give children food, we give children shelter, clothing, education, etc.. These are basic human rights. But the goal of Horizon isn’t the bare minimum. And for the disempowered, the bare minimum often seems that that is all that there is. 

But can we see beyond the bare minimum. Can we step into the space of empowerment? Something beyond? Go somewhere beyond where we have dared to go before. To dream, to hope, and to have the confidence that these pressings and desires put on our hearts are there for a reason. Can we step beyond and give to others the tools, the support, the love and confidence to pursue that for themselves? 

Empowerment is not a road we walk alone. It is a symbiotic dance that springs from the deep wells of our beings and radiates out into the world. And when the sun shines on one person, it is shining on all of us. 

Written by: Allison Rohland

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